More States Accept TSA VIPR Teams at Transportation Hubs

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
November 8, 2011

The effort by the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA to expand their operations from airports to state roads and beyond is being accepted by state and local governments around the country, according to AllGov.com, a website covering government activity.

AllGov.com reports today that other “states are expected to follow and accept VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) at their transportation hubs” following recent operations in Tennessee.

The unconstitutional operations were not in response “to any particular threat,” but rather designed to act as “a visible deterrence and detection security presence across Tennessee.”

In other words, the operation was an effort to acclimate Tennesseans to militarized TSA units at checkpoints around the state.

In October, the TSA’s VIPR units worked with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and conducted random inspections on interstate roadways in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport, told News Channel 5 that intelligence indicates law enforcement should focus on the highways as well as the airports. “Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate,” added Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

Since September 11, 2001, the United States has not faced the prospect of a serious domestic terrorist plot. The FBI habitually recruits and publicizes alleged terror plots arranged by its army of informers and operatives for propaganda purposes, but none of these have represented a serious threat. A terror plot hyped on the tenth anniversary of September 11th turned out to be a government concocted ruse. Intelligence agencies reported there was no terrorist threat.

As Patrick Gallahue has documented, the government now routinely conflates terrorism with narco-related crime in an effort to expand its reach and violate the U.S. Constitution.

AllGov.com reports the VIPR budget for FY 2012 is $109 million. It supports 37 VIPR teams. According to the DHS, these “teams are comprised of personnel with expertise in inspection, behavior detection, security screening, and law enforcement for random, unpredictable deployments throughout the transportation sector to prevent potential terrorist and criminal acts.”

It is specifically authorized by 6 U.S.C. § 1112 which states that the program is to “augment the security of any mode of transportation at any location within the United States,” a clear violation of Posse Comitatus. The federal effort to nullify Posse Comitatus and violate the Tenth Amendment under the rubric of anti-terrorism is huge.

The VIPR teams are designed to detain and search citizens at railroad stations, bus stations, ferries, car tunnels, ports, subways, truck weigh stations, rest areas, and special events. Like the Gestapo, many VIPR agents work in civilian clothing.

Airport security style checkpoints and inspection procedures are already in place at bus terminals, train stations, and are rapidly being expanded to the streets of America.

The TSA announced its plan to turn the nation’s highways into Gestapo zones back in February. “These inspection stations are now being expanded to normal roads and highways, unleashing an army of TSA agents who will be given a free hand to litter America with internal checkpoints in a chilling throwback to Soviet-style levels of control over the population,” Paul Jospeh Watson wrote at the time.

“If people think they can avoid the TSA by staying away from airports, they’re going to be in for a rude awakening,” Watson noted. “TSA is clearly engaged in a total takeover of society and plans to have its agents searching, patting down, scanning and harassing Americans at all levels of society, not just at transport hubs but at public events, in the street and on highways and roads across the country.”